1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to certain new and useful improvements in weight lifting exercising apparatus, and more particularly to weight lifting apparatus with a frame and a carriage vertically shiftable on said frame and capable of carrying a selected amount of bar-bell type weights thereon, and with a body supporting bench selectively attachable to said frame in a number of desired orientations to thereby enable performance of a large number of exercises.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, with increased emphasis on body health, there has been an introduction into the market place, a large number of weight lifting exercising apparatus. In many cases, these weight lifting exercising apparatus have become quite sophisticated. In most constructions, the weight lifting exercising apparatus is comprised of an upstanding frame, one or more weights which may be selectively introduced and a cable connected to the weights and trained around one or more pulleys on the frame. The user of the apparatus engages the cable or some member connected to the cable, e.g. a handle and pulls on the cable to attempt to lift the selectively introduced weights.
While many of these apparatus have been very effective in enabling one to perform certain standard body exercises by lifting weights in a limited number of body positions, the exercising apparatus are not highly effective in permitting the user to perform a large number of differing exercises. Moreover, each of the commercially available exercising apparatus are constructed so that they are relatively expensive and thus, not easily affordable for home use. The same holds true in that the commercially available exercising apparatus which are available to commercial institutions are also constructed in a manner where they are not sized and conveniently operated in a home use environment.
U.S. Pat. No. Re. 28,066 to Marcyan discloses a single station body exercising apparatus which is comprised of a plurality of pulleys and a means for introducing a desired amount of weight to lift against. Moreover, a cable is trained around the pulleys and a handle mechanism for the user to engage. U.S. Pat. No. 3,438,627 to La Lanne also discloses a weight lifting apparatus in which a cable is trained around a plurality of pulleys and connected to one or more weights. The other end of the cable is provided with a handle for the user to engage and to apply a force in order to lift the weights. U.S. Pat. No. 3,912,263 to Yatso and U.S. Patent No. 3,971,555 to Mahnke disclose similar forms of body exercising apparatus. The same holds true with the body exercising apparatus taught in British Pat. No. 1,438,466 and French Pat. No. 1,444,865.
This is not a significant problem in commercial institutions, such as gymnasiums and the like, where a number of people will simultaneously use different exercising apparatus to perform various different weight lifting exercises. However, for home use, it is impractical to have a plurality of different exercising apparatus.
Another one of the problems with the commercially available exercising apparatus is the fact that most of the apparatus are constructed from structural metals, such as steel and the like. As a result, these apparatus are usually of a welded construction and not readily and easily transportable. They are quite heavy and bulky and therefore costly to ship. Moreover, by virtue of their construction they are not readily adaptable for easy assembly or disassembly.